Tipperary TD Jackie Cahill has criticised what he called the “appalling levels of customer service that eir provides to its customers” in rural Ireland where broadband is concerned.
Speaking in the Dáil, in an exchange with the Minister for Environment, Climate and Communications Eamon Ryan, the Fianna Fáil TD claimed that he was aware of “a number of instances” in his county where the communications and broadband provider “has shown a complete and utter disregard for the wishes and concerns of its customers”.
“Rural Ireland is being completely disregarded by eir, as it picks and chooses which customers it will deal with, leaving others to pay for services that are not fit for purpose or desperately trying to connect to fibre broadband in their locality,” Cahill remarked.
“The people of rural Ireland have had enough of eir’s customer service standards and its approach to the roll-out of the National Broadband Plan,” Cahill told Minister Ryan.
He claimed: “I am receiving new complaints weekly in relation to the way eir treats its customers, and the manner in which it is supposedly connecting rural Ireland to high speed fibre broadband.”
The Tipperary TD outlined one example: “I had one woman in the Thurles area contact me stating that she had tried and failed on numerous occasions to cancel her landline contract with eir. Every time she called their customer service, she was left on hold for up to an hour. She was not able to cancel her plan for months, despite best efforts.
And then eir turned around and informed her that she owed a bill of over €100 for that period. Her line had given problems, she got fed up with trying to get it fixed, tried to cancel her plan and met roadblock after roadblock with eir’s customer service. This is not on.
He also cited an example in Holycross of three houses “next door to each other”, the middle one of which is not connected to broadband while the other two are.
And, according to Cahill, one person in the Portroe area had to work from her car during the first Covid-19 lockdown as the internet connection in her house was insufficient.
The TD went on to cite other examples of inconsistent broadband coverage.
People are expected to work from home, to study from home and to live in rural Ireland with ease and comfort. Yet, eir continues to disregard and ignore the needs and requests of its customers, without the slightest bit of concern for the best interests of rural Ireland.
The Ceann Comhairle, for his part, said after Cahill’s comments: “Minister, eir’s customer service is appalling and it raises profound questions about whether ComReg [Commission for Communications Regulation] is doing its job.”